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Insigneo Newsletter - December 2022
Welcome to our monthly Insigneo newsletter!
Our monthly e-newsletter keeps you up to date with events, funding, success stories and information. We hope you will find it useful!
Insigneo Showcase 2023 - Save the date!
We are excited to announce the Insigneo Showcase is planned for the Friday 14 July 2023 and will be held at The Diamond building so make sure you put this date in your diaries!
We will announce more details in the new year but you can read about this year's Insigneo Showcase which celebrated our 10th anniversary.
Insigneo General Assembly & Winter Symposium
On Wednesday 7 December 2022 Insigneo members and colleagues gathered together for the Insigneo General Assembly and Winter Symposium which returned to a face-to-face meeting held at the Portobello Centre. Thank you to everyone who attended and to our new members who gave us a fantastic introduction to their research:
- Heather Elphick, Consultant in Paediatric Respiratory Medicine, Sheffield Children’s Hospital
- James Scott, Academic Clinical Fellow, School of Clinical Dentistry, University of Sheffield
- Jamie Miles, Clinical Research Fellow, ACP and Paramedic, University of Sheffield
Lifetime achievement award for Wendy Tindale
Professor Wendy Tindale OBE, Scientific and Innovation Director at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and Clinical Director of the National Institute for Health Research’s Devices for Dignity MedTech Cooperative, received the Lifetime Achievement Award for her exceptional scientific contribution to healthcare innovation.
Wendy was recognised for her contribution to the delivery of a wide range of medical innovations including the introduction of hybrid imaging in the UK and the UK’s first 3D imaging laboratory in Sheffield.
Wendy was key to the development of the partnership between the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals that led to the foundation of the Insigneo Institute.
Wendy was particularly proud to pick up the accolade alongside healthcare science leads Tracy Cook, Tracey Murray and Sarah Kelly who picked up the prestigious Shirley Fletcher Apprenticeship Award for developing an innovative training programme to equip healthcare scientists with the skills they need to meet the future demands of the service.
Insigneo Summer Research Programme posters 2022
The Insigneo Summer Research Programme 2022 took place from June to September. We hosted placements for 10 University of Sheffield undergraduates to undertake a research project within the Institute each led by one of our Early Career Researchers. Projects were on a wide variety of topics related to our five research themes and students enjoyed being able to participate both on campus and remotely.
We are very proud to share their hard work. You can view their posters and comments about their experience on the programme on our website.
Researchers develop award-winning tool using AI to measure heart’s function
Researchers from the University of Sheffield's Medical School have worked with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation to develop a pioneering artificial intelligence tool to help doctors get fast and accurate measurements of the heart’s function.
Involving Insigneo members Dr Andrew Swift, Dr Samer Alabed and Dr Pete Metherall, working with Dr Mahan Salehi at the Medical School, Dr Kavita Karunasagaraar at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Michael Sharkey at 3D Lab, the Sheffield team have developed a cutting-edge tool that provides doctors with immediate measurements of the heart’s function.
Thanks to its speed and accuracy, the tool allows doctors to read results from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) heart scans within seconds, removing the need for time-consuming and resource-intensive heart measuring methods.
With the potential to benefit the wider NHS, the tool was awarded with a Medipex NHS Innovation Award for using AI to improve patient services and safety.
Insigneo hosts Sano PhD training event
At the beginning of October, Insigneo welcomed 22 members of Sano, the Centre for Computational Medicine, Krakow, Poland, including Research Team Leaders, PostDocs, Scientific Programmers and PhD Students to a week long PhD Training programme. This was the second time Insigneo had hosted the Sano PhD Training and the first time it was held in person. The event was held in the Medical School Seminar Rooms and the Pam Liversidge Building for the final day. The event opened with a welcome from Dr Andrew Narracott followed by an introduction to medical imaging from Dr John Fenner. The event was organised by Dr Ivan Benemerito.
Over the week the participants engaged in presentations and workshops covering topics from personalised computational modelling, medical imaging, virtual reality, sensitivity analysis, through the considerations of the commercialisation of medical devices and had the opportunity to interactive with a number of Insigneo members, including: Dr Michail Mamalakis (now University of Cambridge), Prof Ian Halliday, Krzysztof Czechowicz, Dr Mari-Cruz Villa-Uriol, Dr Daniele Tartarini, Dr Enrico Dall’Ara, Dr Lingzhong Guo, Dr Pinaki Bhattacharya, Prof Richard Clayton, Dr Giulia Pederzani, Alex Wilkinson and Dr Luis Rene Montana Gonzalez.
Highlights included a tour of the Medical Imaging facilities at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, including Ultrasound, X-Ray, MRI and PET-MRI, organised by Dr David Randall. The participants also had the opportunity to sample a traditional British Pie and Peas dinner at the University Arms and finer dining at Silversmiths.
The Sano team would like to thank all the Insigneo and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals staff that helped make this event a success.
Remote clinical consultations in restorative dentistry - a pilot clinical study
Fig 1: Hardware AV set up for remote clinical consultations
Researchers at the University of Sheffield's School of Dentistry and David King (Insigneo Director for Smart Devices and Sensors) from the AMRC have had a paper published in Medical Research Archives.
This pilot in-practice clinical effectiveness study identified that remote clinical consultations, as conducted in this study, are effective for the delivery
of specialist consultations in restorative dentistry and are not inferior to an in-person consultation.
While in-person specialist consultations remain the gold-standard, the study found that three-way discussion was very positive during remote clinical consultations and there were high levels of acceptability from the patients and the referring General Dental Practitioners. Remote clinical consultations offer an alternative to patient travel, reducing travel inconvenience, cost and the environmental burden from the associated carbon dioxide emissions.
Congratulations to Insigneo Member, Ballad Witchayut Sasimonthon, on passing his PhD viva. Ballad is supervised by Prof Gwen Reilly in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
On the cover: Radiology
Figure 6: Three-dimensional rendering of (A) full-scale airway network (FAN), (B) FAN modeling, and (C, D) hyperpolarized xenon imaging in NHLC (C) and PHC (D) participants. Results from both low-resolution and ventilation imaging are similar and did not correlate with clinical or dissolved-phase imaging results.
Congratulations to the Polaris team on their Radiology cover. This edition includes their paper on 'Lung Abnormalities Detected with Hyperpolarized 129Xe MRI in Patients with long covid'.
New members
We would like to introduce some of our new members who have joined the Insigneo Institute recently:
Meg Gabarda
Department of Mechanical Engineering
PhD Student
Meg obtained her MSc in Bioengineering at The University of Sheffield after completing her BEng in Mechanical Engineering at Coventry University.
She chose to stay on at Sheffield to complete a PhD because of the impact research in computational medicine can have in the field of cardiovascular disease.
Her project focuses on creating a benchmark for characterising biologically relevant cardiovascular flows. Under the supervision of Professors Alberto Marzo, Melika Gul, Shuisheng He and Paul Evans, she will primarily be using particle image velocimetry and computational fluid dynamics to investigate the topic.
Interest groups at the Alan Turing Institute
Nine new Interest Groups were launched at the Turing in November including the Sheffield-led “Meta-learning for multimodal data” ( sign up to join). Information on the new groups is available here. Interest Groups aim to promote research collaboration, share knowledge, and communicate emerging scientific concepts to the wider Institute and beyond, around a shared area of interest in data science and AI. Some groups align closely with areas of interest and expertise at the University of Sheffield. Take a look and sign up to the Turing interest groups; find further information about the Institute on the Turing Institute Website.
BIOREME study group - mathematical modelling
Do you have news to share with us?
If you would like us to include information and/or events to this newsletter please email: news@insigneo.org (the newsletter will be issued during the 2nd week of the month, excluding January and August).
Insigneo members - please let us know when your students are graduating so that we can celebrate their success!
Please ensure that you submit items for inclusion with a minimum of one week's notice.
Guest Lectures, Conferences & Seminars
We will share a link to our Online Training Opportunities document here each month.
Insigneo events
15 December
Joint Development, Regeneration and Neurophysiology cluster/ECM & Insigneo Mechanobiology seminar
14 July 2023
Insigneo Showcase - save the date!
A selection of Insigneo seminar recordings are available to view on our YouTube channel.
Other events
16 December
IICD Department Research in Progress Meeting: Paul Hughes (in person) "DISCO: application in the lungs and demonstration of an analysis pipeline for pulmonary perfusion metric generation". Please contact Sarah Black (sarah.black@sheffield.ac.uk) for connection details.
19 December
Sano seminar: Szymon Plotka, Health Informatics Team, Sano Centre for Computational Science, Krakow, PL
2023
6 January
IICD Department Research in Progress Meeting: Heba Ismail (Title TBC), James Newton "The Epidemiology of Respiratory Viral Infections in Immunocompromised Patients: The SIRVVIS Study". Please contact Sarah Black (sarah.black@sheffield.ac.uk) for connection details.
9 January
Sano seminar: Jaroslaw Kwiecien and Piotr Krajewski, Cancer Center Sp. z. o.o., Wroclaw PL
9 - 11 January
17th RSC Biomaterials Chemistry Group Annual Meeting, Sheffield
11 January
Bringing biomedical/medical interventions to market & patients - Role of IP - open to any University of Sheffield researchers working in, or looking to move into, research relating to cancer.
23 January
Sano seminar: Bartosz Balis, Institute of Computer Science and ACC Cyfronet, AGH, Krakow, PL
7 February
Medical Device Innovation: Resilience, Services and Support Showcase event for MedTech companies, clinicians and academics, jointly hosted by AMRC, KTN, AHSN, Innovate UK EDGE, Medilink and Medipex
28 February
N8 CIR: Python GPU Programming Workshop - part 1
1 March
Joint workshop with Sheffield Children's Hospital - save the date
The Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry & Health are in the early stages of organising a joint workshop with the Children's Hospital to look at opportunities for greater research collaboration and the appetite for developing a Sheffield/South Yorkshire network themed on childrens and young persons health and wellbeing. We have identified 1 March 2023 as a potential date, and are in the process of planning the event and identifying interested academics and clinicians. Please hold the date (12.30 to 16.00) and await further circulation.
7 March
Sheffield Cancer Research Away Day - open to researchers from across all faculties at the University of Sheffield.
21 - 22 March
AI UK 2023, London - save the date
14 April
N8 CIR: Python GPU Programming Workshop - part 2
17 - 20 April
BIOREME: A Study Group in Mathematical Modelling - Developing the next
generation of lung function measurement, Sheffield - Challenge submission deadline - 31 Jan 2023
For a full list of upcoming events visit: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/insigneo/overview/events
Vacancies
Publications
Porous biomaterials for tissue engineering: a review (Journal of Materials Chemistry B) F. J. Maksoud, M. F. Velázquez de la Paz, A. J. Hann, J. Thanarak, G. C. Reilly, F. Claeyssens, N. H. Green, Y. S. Zhang
Interpretation and actionability of genetic variants in cardiomyopathies: A position statement from the European Society of Cardiology Council on cardiovascular genomics (European Heart Journal) E. Arbustini, E. R. Behr, L. Carrier, C. van Duijn, P. Evans, V. Favalli, P. van der Harst, K. H. Haugaa, G. Jondeau, S. Kääb, J. P. Kaski, M. Kavousi, B. Loeys, A. Pantazis, Y. Pinto, H. Schunkert, A. Di Toro, T. Thum, M. Urtis, J. Waltenberger, P. Elliott
Elastomeric, bioadhesive and pH-responsive amphiphilic copolymers based on direct crosslinking of poly(glycerol sebacate)-co-polyethylene glycol (Biomaterials Science) M. Aleemardani, M. Z. Trikić, N. H. Green, F. Claeyssens
A Dual-Channel Deep Learning Approach for Lung Cavity Estimation From Hyperpolarized Gas and Proton MRI (Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging) J. R. Astley, A. M. Biancardi, H. Marshall, P. J. C. Hughes, G. J. Collier, L. J. Smith, J. A. Eaden, R. Hughes, J. M. Wild, B. A. Tahir
In Vitro Modelling for Bulging Sinus Effects of an Expanded Polytetrafluoroethylene Valved Conduit Based on High-Speed 3D Leaflet Evaluation (2022 44th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society (EMBC)) Y. Shiraishi, A. J. Narracott, A. Yamada, A. Fukaya, G. Sahara, T. Yambe, Y. Nagano, M. Yamagishi
Characterization of an Inflatable Soft Actuator and Tissue Interaction for In Vitro Mechanical Stimulation of Tissue (Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems: 23rd Annual Conference) F. Forbes, A. Smith, D. D. Damian
Electrically Controlled Click-Chemistry for Assembly of Bioactive Hydrogels on Diverse Micro- and Flexible Electrodes (Macromolecular Rapid Communications) A. C. Da Silva, T. F. Akbar, T. E. Paterson, C. Werner, C. Tondera, I. R. Minev
Sensitivity Analysis of a Model of Lower Limb Haemodynamics (Computational Science – ICCS 2022: 22nd International Conference) M. Otta, I. Halliday, J. Tsui,
C. Lim, Z. R. Struzik, A. Narracott
Noninvasive Estimation of Mean Pulmonary Artery Pressure Using MRI, Computer Models, and Machine Learning (Computational Science – ICCS 2022: 22nd International Conference) M. K. Grzeszczyk, T. Satława, A. Lungu, A. Swift, A. Narracott, R. Hose, T. Trzcinski, A. Sitek
Bone biomechanics (Human Orthopaedic Biomechanics: Fundamentals, Devices and Applications) E. Dall’Ara, V. S. Cheong
Lung MRI with hyperpolarised gases: current & future clinical perspectives (British Journal of Radiology) N. J. Stewart, L. J. Smith, H.-F. Chan, J. A. Eaden, S. Rajaram, A. J. Swift, N. D. Weatherley, A. Biancardi, G. J. Collier, D. Hughes, G. Klafkowski, C. S. Johns, N. West, K. Ugonna, S. M. Bianchi, R. Lawson, I. Sabroe, H. Marshall, J. M Wild
